Sam PF's Journal
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Below are the 4 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Sam PF" journal:
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09:48 pm
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Logistics and life
A while since I've made a general update - not a whole lot to report it must be said - mostly the usual rounds of work and Swedish classes and choir practice and spending too much time on the internet and watching DS9.
I did spend a couple of days in Brussels the week before last, on work, which I'd totally meant to write about but you know how it is. I was at the European Defence Agency (EDA) confernce on "Commercialising Logistics?", which they'd invited SIPRI to send someone too, and which was of considerable interest as we're writing about the privatizing and outsourcing of military activities right now.
The focus of the conference was on the potential for outsourcing logistical supply for EU Crisis Management missions such as those in Chad and DRC.
( Logistical geekiness )
The best talk though was from Amer Daoudi from the World Food Programme, who'se the head of their Logistics Service. He was basically "We're the biggest logistical operation on the planet, we have 3,000 people doing this alone, we shift so many gazillion tonnes a year, we do it cheaper and faster than anyone else, over the worst terrain imaginable - you guys are amateurs!" (well, he didn't say the last bit.) Oh, and they use elephants where necessary to deliver stuff when the going gets really bad! He sort of stole the show.
Moving in rather fluffier circles, I found it very noticeable just how male-dominated the whole thing was. (Not that I should be surprised.) There were maybe an 10-15% of the participants women, but all the speakers, panellists, moderators, and all the people making questions and comments from the floor (quite a number) were men.
Also not surprisingly, very white - I think Amer Daoudi may have been the only non-white person there out of about 300. Though I can't really claim that the fluffier circles are often much better on that score.
( general pootling (SPOILER for Buffy S8.12) )
In other news, my brother is now in New York, visiting our grandmother for 10 days before going on to California where he will be living. (As mentioned here which can be unlocked now I've sent him the tunes.)
Also I have finally got round to going to the doctor over my persistent sleeping problems. I basically tend to fail at sleep a lot of the time, which is not good for my productivity or general well-being. Getting a full examination next week. Should have gone ages ago, but I am an avoidant idiot.
Tags: family, life, logistics, war, work
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08:00 pm
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Update
I have a Personal Number! It came on Monday. I now exist in Sweden!
Jag har ett personnummar, därför jag är.
Jag är ett nummar, jag är inte en vri man.
(I think. Something like that.)
This is good, because it means I can do things like get free Swedish lessons, open a bank account, GET BROADBAND!!!!, go to the doctor, and things like that. And did I mention, GET BROADBAND!!!!!!?
Otherwise, life and work plod on. I have been trying out this wierd thing called getting up at a vaguely normal time, getting into SIPRI at 9.15ish, working a normal working day (plus a bit sometimes) and then leaving. It's working out OK, though leaving me rather tired with adjusting to the timetable. Haven't got the getting to bed by midnightish down yet.
Work is good, though at the moment fairly mechanical - going through the arms companies and trying to get data on their arms sales, and getting through a backlog of reading, annotating and filing the defence press. The former can be tricksy not so much because companies treat this as super-sekrit, but simply because in a lot of cases their reporting divisions don't correspond to what we're after. But that's what makes it interesting, so all good.
Otherwise I have been mostly Watching Angel and DS9, and working on a super-sekrit project of my own (which doesn't involve arms, unless you count stakes.) Been out a couple of times, drinks with some colleagues Friday, and watching Scotland's rather extraordinary win against France a week ago, but otherwise fairly sedate.
Spent a fairly quiet first weekend - needed it after the past few weeks - Saturday generally meandering round Stockholm and failing to buy a TV, Sunday taking a walk round the island I live on (Ekerö), which is quite nice, what with the water n'all, also quite a lot of woodland to wander through. Plus more SSP, and the English language mass in the evening. (I hope to wean myself off that in due course, but for the moment good to have the English version). As luck would have it, I was sitting in front of someone who's in one of the choirs, and is scouting for more members. This is my usual strategy for getting to know people at a new church - sing and wait to be invited to join a choir - (most RC churches have sufficiently limited vocal resources that this is a likely eventuality), but it doesn't usually happen quite so quickly. Can't make the next one though due to my first Blighty visit.
Anyway, that's me. And I have more or less used up the time I had left on my internet cafe ticket that runs out today, so I shall head home for dinner, DS9 and SSP.
Tags: life
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03:13 pm
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It's official - moving job
I have just been formally offered, and have accepted, a job at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as a Researcher on the Military Expenditure and Arms Production project. I will specifically be working on arms production. I worked there before on military expenditure for 8 months prior to my current job at UWE.
I will start at SIPRI at the beginning of November. However UWE are very kindly giving me a sort of mini-sabbatical from some time in early September.
UWE's been good to me as my first academic post, and I'll be sorry to go in many ways, but I feel it's time to move on, and SIPRI is an excellent place to work, and the project I'll be working on has lots of exciting possibilities.
Visitors in Stockholm will be most welcome!
Tags: life, work
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10:34 pm
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Lacking a title
Weekend away at Unite for Peace, sadly without a poorly ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mirabehn, and mostly_a_cat. As Fellowship of Reconciliation have now sold the Eirene Centre in Northamptonshire where we used to meet, we were at Douai Abbey in Berkshire, which seems quite satisfactory, and is certainly more convenient for me, though not so much for the Midland folks.
Normally we have various sessions, discussions, sometimes speakers, on one topic or another, but this time as our weekend coincided with the latest Stop the War demo in London, we spent the Saturday there.
A good day out, nice to be going with a bunch of people I know well, though the lack of effectiveness of these demos is rather dispiriting to me at any rate. Between 10-100,000, depending on whether you believe the random numbers made up by the police or the organisers (I don't believe either, nor do I believe that "the truth is probably somewhere in the middle"), but pretty much lacking in political impact either way. Although we seem to be sliding ever closer to war with Iran, which would be an untold catastrophe, there seems to be a total sense of apathy and... torpor amongst people about it - and Stop the War seem to just keep on bashing their heads against the same wall, another demo every six months, congratulating themselves on how many people are still coming and how this is the greatest anti-war movement ever, and just absolutely no new ideas about how to actually mobilise people and have an impact. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for mass demos. I make a point of going on them whenever I can. But if marching from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square every six months is all we've got, we're screwed. (There was the demo at the Labour Conference in Manchester 6 months ago which, hypocrite, I missed as I was on my way back from Turkey, but still pretty much just another big demo.)
Still, a good day out. Seventeen of us, nine adults and eight children, the eldest of whom have been growing up with our little group (7 now). Just before the march set off we had a group photo with the FoR banner just outside Hyde Park, and all of a sudden there was this feeding frenzy of cameras around us - including some quite professional-looking ones - all wanting a piece of us! Either it was the whole "Look - cute children campaigning for peace!" thing, or a "Look at these terrible people BRAINWASHING their children and taking them on DEMOS ALONG WITH OMG MUSLIM FANATICS!!!!" thing. Hopefully the former.
Thursday evening I was in Birmingham, planning the next Called to be Peacemakers conference. Gah, I was most remiss in barely blogging the last one, before or after. We're planning it for late Octoberish again, date tbc, general theme of Conflict Resolution/Transformation (at all levels). Martha, the FoR worker doing the main organising, seems pleased to treat me as an honorary young-person (or at least a slightly-older-than-young person wot comes along in a nominally organisey/helping-out capacity), and seems to think me being around is a Good Thing despite my advanced years, so I stick around. There were several of the new people from the last conference along at the planning meeting, which is an encouraging sign. Anyway, watch this space for further details.
*sigh* Monday beckons ever larger. Rarely a popular day of the week, this year I have had the supreme joy of starting the week with an 8.30am seminar. I'm sure 8.30am classes must count as Cruel and Unusual, for both students and teachers. And that's the first of six hours teaching, so I finish the day a crumpled-up ball of deadness. Ah, well. Set internal dukebox to Boomtown Rats.
Tags: life, peace, politics, uk politics, unite for peace, war
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